Perkins Loves Star Wars Analogies

There’s a video game out called Star Wars: The Old Republic, and it apparently includes same-sex relationships. That has Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council clutching his pearls and digging into his grab bag of clever Star Wars references:

In a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists! Hello, I’m Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. In a galaxy not so far far away, Star Wars gamers have already gone to the dark side. The new video game, Star Wars: The Old Republic, has added a special feature: gay relationships. Bioware, the company that developed the game, said it’s launching a same-sex romance component to satisfy some complaints. That surprised a lot of gamers, since Bioware had made it clear in 2009 that “gay” and “lesbian” don’t exist in the Star Wars universe. Since the announcement, homosexuals have been celebrating the news, but parents sure aren’t. On the game’s website, there are more than 300 pages of comments–a lot of them expressing anger that their kids will be exposed to this Star Warped way of thinking. You can join them by logging on and speaking up. It’s time to show companies who the Force is really with!

Yeah! Those evil sith lords want to shove their light sabers down your throat! What’s next, beastiality? Did Han Solo do it all for the wookie?

Brownian, the problem with living in Edmonton is I want to go down to the Bioware offices and smack them for Dragon Age 2 and for calling their shooter game Mass Effect an “RPG”.

eric

–a lot of them expressing anger that their kids will be exposed to this Star Warped way of thinking…

So, parents, don’t expose them. Problem solved. Great googly moogly, even in the very narrow interest category of “sci-fi MMORPGs,” you’ve got other choices that don’t make sexual relationships (of any sort) a game component.

imrryr

All this does is make me want to buy more Bioware games. Still don’t really care for MMO type games though, so I’ll probably pass on this Star Wars game.

@Tabby – If I lived in Edmonton, I would follow up your slap with a hug because I actually liked DA2. 🙂

“Bioware’s history of same-sex relationships in games dates at least back to Dragon Age Origins.”

I was going to say the same thing. It’s not exactly new, although it is somewhat recent.

The whole goal behind RPGs is to allow the player to make as many choices as possible to shape his/her character and outcomes. Romantic relationships are a somewhat recent addition to the genre, and allowing a gay option only expands the number of choices a player has. Of course, I’m still a big fan of The Witcher where the player character receives racy looking trophy cards every time he bangs a chick, which he does with ridiculous ease. But that’s just good old family values at work there.

The irony is that in the Star Wars game, unlike the real world, you can choose whether or not to be gay, just as you can choose whether or not to be a murderous tyrannical Sith lord. Shouldn’t Perkins be happy about that?

If Bioware caved in and eliminated the same-sex relationships, Tony would see exactly who the force is with. The negative feedback they’re getting now would be nothing compared to the shit-storm that would result.

“Other Religious Right groups are also attacking Starbucks for supporting marriage equality. Liberty Counsel Chairman Matt Staver has been calling for a boycott of the company since last October because of their “pro-homosexual” stance and on January 30th, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) warned Starbucks to “stay out of the marriage fight.” The right-wing Christian Family Research Council (FRC) is also claiming the coffee chain ‘doesn’t know beans about marriage.'”

Bioware’s history of same-sex relationships in games dates at least back to Dragon Age Origins.

Actually, there was a potential same-sex relationship in (drumroll please…) Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. However, this was an option only available to female characters who could romance Juhani.

Things got more balanced in Jade Empire where same-sex romance options were available for both sexes.

That made it that much sadder when BioWare took a big step backwards in Mass Effect allowing only one same-sex relationship – again only available to a female character.

Dragon Age: Origins was another step forward, then Mass Effect 2 was a huge step back when it became almost completely heterosexual for the main romances (there were potential lesbian flings, but not full romances).

Despite the issues with Dragon Age 2 as a game, all romance options were available to both sexes, making it their most progressive game yet in this regard.

Fun times on the BioWare message boards regarding Mass Effect: The same-sex relationship available in Mass Effect is with a character who belongs to a mono-gendered alien species. The species is humanoid and except for their blue/purple skin and skin folds instead of hair, they all look like human women.

Because of the mono-gendered nature of the asari species, there were people on the boards who seriously argued that it wasn’t a same-sex relationship between Liara (the asari NPC) and a female Shepard (the player’s character).

I tried to make the point that if the mono-gendered alien species looked like human males, would they then argue that it wouldn’t be a gay relationship for a male Shepard to then romance someone from that species, but the argument tended to be ignored.

Doug Little

In a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists!

So the gays are the biggest threat to tyrannical totalitarianism, I can’t see the negative in this, I’m not entirely sure that these fucktards know who the good guys are, but aligning with the Empire would make sense.

noastronomer

@morganmcevoy

Since I’m an online game addict I’ve been following this game since it was announced and it was implicit from the start that the option for same-sex relationships would be included.

Memory is a little fuzzy but if I recall correctly BioWare’s actual comment was the *concepts* of gay and lesbian don’t exist in the Star Wars universe. There’s no need for them. Everyone just goes with who they love. Easy to see how a bigot might (choose) to misinterpret that.

Incidentally the other big gaming success of the moment, Skyrim which I’m playing in preference to Star Wars, has no gender restrictions on marriage. Skyrim also differs from Earth in another respect : divorce is not possible.

Mike.

lordshipmayhem

Did Han Solo do it all for the wookie?

But he’s no longer a wookie. He’s now expewienced.

eric

Tabby @18 – interesting summary. It really looks from your list like BioWare is doing old fashioned, capitalist market experimentation: fooling with settings to see what types of romance and how much romance players like in these games.

Politics has “never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.” But in business, its probably more this: “never attribute to ideology what can be explained by profit motive.”

regexp

So I have a Sith Assassin in SWTOR that has killed his master, sent robots with still living screaming human soldiers to serve the empire, took over a gang in a city who now worship me, bedded the female brother of the head of that gang and dropped her like a rock, subdued a big green ancient devil looking warrior and made him my slave, sucked in the souls of four long dead sith lords, forced a young Jedi apprentice to the dark side after I killed her masters and destroyed everything in her world and murdered or mutated thousands of characters throughout the galaxy (both good and bad)…

… and Perkins has a problem with my character getting it on with one of my male companions?

morejello

What’s next, beastiality? Did Han Solo do it all for the wookie?

Is it besiality when the targest of desire is sentient? Or is it just when they’re a different species?

Lordshipmayhem sez:

But he’s no longer a wookie. He’s now expewienced.

That’s some funny shit right there.

Abby Normal

I play this game. Same-sex relationships aren’t in yet, though some interspecies ones are. Also included are racism, rape, murder, slavery, war, torture, and genocide. For entertainment I’ve seen soldiers let refugees loose in a field containing scattered crates. Some crates have food, others have bombs. You can bet with the soldiers on the outcome. Yet, giving players the option to flirt with certain members of the same sex, that’s where Perkins draws the line. Good grief.

LightningRose

Aren’t all those interspecies relationships we’ve seen on “Star Trek” a form of bestiality?

valhar2000

On the game’s website, there are more than 300 pages of comments–a lot of them expressing anger that their kids will be exposed to this Star Warped way of thinking.

And there are thousands of comments from fans, and fanfics, begging for the inclusion of homosexual relations in Bioware’s games (I’m not kidding: search Deviant Art for “Mass Effect”, and you’ll find almost half of the content is made by female artists wishing for the male characters to get it on). Bioware should have done this a long time ago, and I’m guessing it was only pussy-footing on EA’s part that delayed it so much.

Wingnuts will bleat, I’m sure, but if you remove homosexuality from Bioware’s games, 90% of the remaining content will still be objectionable to them, so they are are not, in any way, the target audience of Bioware, and therefore not people they should listen to.

imrryr

@Abby Normal – Excellent point. I remember when Age of Conan came out there was a man on the forums who complained about the naked women in the game (a feature that has since been removed, I think) and how for that reason he couldn’t let his pre-teen son play with him.

Apparently, exposing his kid to decapitations, prostitution, and general brutality was acceptable, but boobs? No, that was crossing the line.

One dude on the forum sarcastically referred to him as “father of the year.”

Brownian

I play this game. Same-sex relationships aren’t in yet, though some interspecies ones are. Also included are racism, rape, murder, slavery, war, torture, and genocide. For entertainment I’ve seen soldiers let refugees loose in a field containing scattered crates. Some crates have food, others have bombs. You can bet with the soldiers on the outcome. Yet, giving players the option to flirt with certain members of the same sex, that’s where Perkins draws the line. Good grief.

He’s Catholic. So was I. Fapping to torture and violence is a sacrament as long as you don’t actually touch your genitals while doing it.

Brownian

Brownian, the problem with living in Edmonton is I want to go down to the Bioware offices and smack them for Dragon Age 2 and for calling their shooter game Mass Effect an “RPG”.

Maybe. Of all the people in this city I want to smack, it’s not the people who work for Bioware.

Unless they drive their F-150s like assholes. I dunno, there’s probably some overlap.

Despite the issues with Dragon Age 2 as a game, all romance options were available to both sexes, making it their most progressive game yet in this regard.

I don’t really see it as a matter of being progressive, it’s really just a matter of giving players the most choices available to enrich their gaming experience. In most games you can choose to be a super-evil murderous villain, but this isn’t because we’re trying to show recognition for the super-evil and give them equal moral standing with the good guys. It’s because people sometimes find it entertaining to play such a character. Likewise, as a straight male, I might find it entertaining to play a female character or a gay male character. (As it turns out, I always play straight male Good Guy characters in RPGs, so I guess I’m boring, but I’m glad I have the option to do otherwise.)

Doug Little

Fapping to torture and violence is a sacrament as long as you don’t actually touch your genitals while doing it.

But touching the genitals of an underage boy on the other hand….

laurentweppe

You don’t understands: it’s all a conspiracy by Bioware to push the Emo lifestyle in Western RPGs where protagonists have been traditionally bland, souless husks meant to be inhabited by white male players with greasy hands and power fantasies. Can you imagine that Bioware has been including romance sidequests in their games for a decade and a half without eliciting any well deserved outrage? or that they have worked in the shadow toward the devirilization of gamers by including dozens of badass female characters in their games? And you’d think that it’s only one game company doing this, but look at this: Look at THIS:

A shooter where the strong, manly lead display some puppy eyes and submissiveness toward a female character just because she’s more level headed? If nothing is done, the Emotization of Western video games will become thorough and irrecuperable, and then, games will be filled with warrior poets, reluctant fighters, feminist heroes, staples of the genre like Modern Warfare will start replacing their dull soldierly puppets with characters who name their sons Mohandas, and God knows what other horrors await.

Ramel

In a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists!

So he identifies with the Sith then?

robertfaber

I also play the game. Love it as I’m a big fan of Bioware and worked as a contract technical designer on Neverwinter Nights. It plays more like Bioware’s previous RPGs than WoW, even in hard mode group content. There are dialogue interactions that everyone is involved in even at end game level. Think of it like playing ME or DA with 4-8 friends. It’s awesome.

One further note, SWTOR headquarters is in Austin, Texas, not Edmonton. The liberal oasis of Texas. And when Bioware ads ‘teh gay’, expect the blue school bus crowd to bus in and protest.

yoav

Meanwhile, nutters are calling for a boycott of Starbucks.

“Other Religious Right groups are also attacking Starbucks for supporting marriage equality…

I now have a serious dilemma, on one hand I want to support companies that take a stand in favor of equality, on the other hand I have a moral objection to supporting companies who sell undrinkable brown sludge that shouldn’t be legally allowed to be called coffee.

Doug Little

on the other hand I have a moral objection to supporting companies who sell undrinkable brown sludge that shouldn’t be legally allowed to be called coffee

Wow, that’s some serious coffee snobbery going on there, where do you get your coffee?

Scott Simmons

Well, I was wondering my my teenage son was playing this game all day and night. Ignorance defeated!

iangould

You fools, don;t you understand?

It was homosexuality and all that pagan patheistic “force” worship that casued the oen true Christian God to turn his bac on The Old Republic.

Just as homosexuality caused the Third Reich it led directly to the destruction of The Old Republic and the rise of the Empire.

Vader is in a gimp suit and Palpatine wears a dress.

exdrone

So in a universe that supports Perkins’s belief that homosexuality is a personal choice, he wants The Designer to impose sexual orientation in the characters’ profiles. He is just never going to be satisfied.

exdrone

On the game’s website, there are more than 300 pages of comments – a lot of them expressing anger that their kids will be exposed to this Star Warped way of thinking.

You can see how parents would be horrified. Two characters having a loving relationship with each other? Video games have become such a cesspool. Whatever happened to wholesome experiences, like a Spinal Smash?

Aliasalpha

One of the central tenents of the sith is that you effectively do whatever you want as long as its within your power to do so, you’d think the empire would be the LAST place to find an objection to homosexual relationships

Ichthyic

I’m not entirely sure that these fucktards know who the good guys are

Oh, I’m sure.

think: Freudian Slip.

Ichthyic

Just as homosexuality caused the Third Reich

I thought that was Darwin?

Nobody ever updates me on these things.

Freeman

#30 Brownian: Unless they drive their F-150s like assholes.

I’ve noticed that too. Everyone drives their F-150s like assholes. It seems to be the vehicle of choice for assholes and dumbshits everywhere.

uncephalized

LOL. SO not out of the ordinary for gaming these days. Seems like most RPGs, and any game with a romance element that involves choice of partner, includes a same-sex option these days. It’s just good business with the gamer market being young–and thus largely accepting of homosexuality. No need to ignore the ~5-10% of gamers who ARE gay, because most of the rest won’t care either way.

And Bioware’s been doing this for years. I remember my amused surprise when Sky started dropping hints to my male character in Jade Empire. It’s gotten a little less subtle in recent years, but it’s been around for a long time.

kermit.

Icthyic: ‘Just as homosexuality caused the Third Reich’

I thought that was Darwin?

Same thing. [shrug]

It’s all doubleplus ungood.

FlickingYourSwitch

Why are conservatives so obsessed by LGBTQ? It affects them in no way. Do they know that? And who has parents who gets hysterical about same sex relationships?